I am 68 and every smart jacket I owned was for funerals. This is the first one I have ever written a letter about.
I am 68 and every smart jacket I owned was for funerals. This is the first one I have ever written a letter about.
Six things this ivory blazer gets right that a navy funeral jacket and a fleece never could, from a woman who spotted it in the queue for the lunchtime organ recital.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
Let me say who is talking first. I am Pat, I am 68, and I live in Leeds with my husband Brian, who is 70, and his spaniel Wilf. I have bought my own clothes for fifty years and more, and I have never once thought a jacket worth writing to anybody about. Well. I have changed my mind, and it took a stranger in a queue to do it.
The jacket is the Philippine, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique I have been buying my things from for a while now. It is a tailored ivory blazer with one gold button at the waist, and a hand drawn single line face print with little gilded coins running through it. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
I first saw it at Leeds Minster. On a Friday Brian goes to the free lunchtime organ recital, and I go for the sit down and the sandwich in the market afterwards. Most of us in that queue are in navy and beige, dressed for church whether we are going or not. There is one woman who is not. She stood ahead of us in an ivory jacket covered in big black line drawings of faces, and I had her down as a retired art teacher, or somebody with a little gallery in Ilkley. Then I noticed she had worn the same jacket the month before over jeans, and here it was again over a plain black dress, looking just as right both times. So while we waited for the doors, I asked her, plainly. She was a retired school cook. Forty years of dinners, she said, and never once an art class. She told me the name, and I put it in my phone before the first note. Read on.
Over the arm of my chair, where it lands the minute I am through the door. Even lying down it looks like it has something to say.
Here is what fifty years of buying jackets taught me. Somewhere after sixty, a woman’s wardrobe splits into two piles. There is the smart pile, which is navy and black and comes out for funerals, the bank and the solicitor. And there is the cheerful pile, which is fleeces and cardigans and is not smart at all. Nothing in between.
I had got to the age where the only smart things I owned were for funerals. I had stopped expecting to find a jacket that was smart and cheerful at the same time, and I had certainly stopped expecting to see one in the recital queue.
That is the shops’ doing, not ours. This is the first jacket I have owned that sits in the middle, and having worn it through a wet end of September, two recitals and more market sandwiches than I will admit to, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it came. I laid it out on the bed and stood looking at it for longer than I will tell Brian.
The print is the piece people notice
The boutique calls it a hand drawn single line face motif with gilded coin accents on soft ivory, and says it is artful without being loud. That is exactly it. From across the Minster it reads as big confident black lines. Close up you see the faces, a nose here, a pair of lips there, an eye with its lid half down, and those little gold coins catching the light when you move. It is not a pattern printed by the mile. You will not walk into a room and meet your own jacket.
Folded on the side table with my tea. The lapel, the one gold button and a couple of the gold coins.
I have had more compliments in this jacket in a month than in my good navy one in ten years. People want to know who drew the faces.
Margaret H., TarporleyIt shapes the waist without pulling
I am not the shape I was, and most tailored jackets remind me of it the moment I sit down. The boutique says this one is a tailored, flattering shape that shapes the waist without pulling, and that is how it sits on me. It comes in at the middle so I look like I have one, and it does not strain across the back when I reach for my handbag under the pew. I bought my usual size and did not have to think about it again.
In the hall before the recital, over a cream roll neck and cream trousers. Brian said I looked like I was going somewhere. I was, the Minster.
I am a size 18 and it gives me a waist without squeezing. First jacket in years I have not wanted to take off at the table.
Christine D., FrodshamOne gold button, and a proper lapel
There is one button, a single gold one at the waist, and a notched lapel. That is all, and it is why it looks tidy. The boutique says it looks right worn open or fastened, and I can vouch for both. Fastened, it is smart enough for the Minster. Open, over a roll neck, it is right for the market café. There is no row of buttons to do up wrong and no fussing, and the print gets to do the talking.
On the wardrobe door, fastened with its one gold button. Everything behind it is navy, grey or beige. You can see my problem.
I wear it open with jeans and done up for church. One button, nothing to fiddle with, and it hangs beautifully both ways.
Jean P., SandbachIt holds its line all day
This is where the cheap jackets always let me down. By lunchtime they have creased at the elbows and gone soft at the front, and I look like I slept in them. The boutique says the Philippine is light but structured and keeps a crisp shape from morning right through to evening. I wore it from the queue at half past twelve, through the recital, round the market and home on the bus, and it came off at teatime looking the way it went on.
Wore it all day at my granddaughter’s graduation, sitting down for hours, and it still looked crisp in the photos at dinner.
Pauline R., AudlemIt goes over what I already own
I will not buy anything that needs a whole new outfit to go with it. The boutique suggests it over cream trousers, denim or a simple roll neck, and that is most of my wardrobe. Because the print is ivory and black with a touch of gold, it goes with every plain thing I have. Cream trousers for the Minster, jeans for the market, my plain black dress for a birthday lunch. It is the one piece that makes the rest look chosen.
Friday, ready by the door. Handbag, scarf, umbrella, jacket. I am ready before Brian now, which has never happened.
It goes with my jeans, my black trousers and my one good dress. I have stopped standing in front of the wardrobe wondering what to wear.
Sheila W., WybunburyEvery size, and a whole run of prints
The Philippine comes in one colourway, ivory and black, in sizes from UK 6/8 (XS) right up to UK 22/24 (5XL), so nobody is left out. And if faces are not for you, the boutique does a whole run of these printed blazers in the same tailored shape. My sister June took one look at mine and asked for one for her birthday, so I have been back already. The woman from the recital queue tells me she has two.
Bought the face one for myself and a different print for my sister. Same lovely shape, both fit true to size.
Valerie S., BunburyThe Philippine, against what I had been making do with
You can carry on choosing between the funeral pile and the fleece pile, like I did for years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Smart but sombre, or cheerful but scruffy
Looks like everybody else’s
Pulls across the back when you sit
Creased and soft by lunchtime
Only comes out for funerals
Smart and cheerful at once
A print you will not see everywhere
Shapes the waist without pulling
Holds its line morning to evening
Goes over what you already own
About the price
The Philippine is £33.95, down from £68.00. Every size is the same price.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that it is in the sale while the first of the autumn stock goes, and once a size sells through, that one is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that my good navy jacket cost me more than £68.00 and has been out four times in six years, three of them funerals. £33.95 for one I actually want to put on made it an easy yes.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
If every smart jacket you own comes out for funerals, or everything cheerful you own is a fleece, this is where I would start. Have a look before your size goes, because the first autumn stock will not wait. And if you are ever in the queue for the Friday recital at the Minster and see a woman in an ivory jacket covered in faces, it might be the school cook, and it might be me.
Pat
THE PHILIPPINE LINE ART BLAZER
- Hand drawn single line face print with gilded coin accents
- Tailored shape that shapes the waist without pulling
- One gold button and a notched lapel, open or fastened
- Light but structured, holds its line all day
- Easy over cream trousers, denim or a roll neck
- Sizes UK 6/8 (XS) to UK 22/24 (5XL)
- Free UK delivery
Sale on now. The first autumn stock is already going.